Pain: Sitting with your own or another's pain.
Exploring one of the many drops in the puddles that form when navigating pain in relationship - with self and others.
(And I don’t mean puddle in a bad way, I think puddles are beautiful)
If you’d prefer to fold the washing, look out at the clouds, or lie down with your eyes closed while I read the piece to you, here is the recording.
March 2024
As I hobble down the passage to the bathroom, squeezing my upper thigh with my hand to distract the pain, I see Kiss side-stepping past me. I feel like I’ve been whacked in the chest. He can’t be with my pain; this is too much for him. It is too much for me too in this moment.
I want space, and I want love and comfort as well. I told him I needed him to be careful around me because even a bump could be excruciating, so of course he side-stepped me.
But my default goes to my pain is too much.
It may not be true for him, but it’s the truth of what I’m feeling right now and I jump to that so easily. I think of my mum or dad’s pain when they’re struggling with a bodily challenge. How I sometimes want to side-step that.
Their pain feels too much for me to hold, to see. I don’t always know what to say. I want to scoop up their pain and take it away, but I can’t, so sometimes distance feels like the easiest choice. Is that what he’s feeling?
I shut the bathroom door and in the mirror look into my hazel eyes. They well up with tears. I love you, I whisper quietly. My face crumples up and the tears come. I let them. There is a grief inside my being that needs to come out and so I let it. I let that part of me be seen and heard. The part that feels devastated to be here in this bathroom with me. The part that can’t believe I’m in this pain, the part that’s scared, the part that has no idea when it might ease.
Between tears I talk to myself. I love you, you’re doing so well, you’re a gift to people in your life. I say the last part in opposition to that part of me that feels like a burden sometimes, especially when I’m in pain.
In my experience, pain can be a really hard energy to be around in another, because naturally many of us want to scoop it away for others and when we can’t and it’s in your face all day, for a few days in a row, it feels relentless and disempowering. What can I do to make this person I love feel better?
I want these tears to have a place, a safe space to come out, otherwise they’ll sit inside me and come out somewhere else or feel trapped into a corner for years.
I let them keep coming, and that scared part have her say, share her thoughts about being in pain and while being in an intimate relationship again (for close to 3 years now). I explore what it is to hold what feels true to me, as well as what is most likely true.
I’m grateful to know that when the intensity has ebbed and moved away Kiss and I can explore this together. I can share my fears around my pain being too much, and he can share what feelings come up for him.
I remind myself, looking back into my eyes in the floodlit mirror of the bathroom: this is for you, you might not know why right now, but it is for you! Big tears. The beautiful and the brutal all mixed up together.
I smile gently, feeling into a place in my body that feels comfortable, my forearms, and wonder…what could I be learning in this space? How could I be using this as an opportunity?
…
The next morning the little abscess has finally drained and the intense pain shifts instantly to a more tender and manageable discomfort. Again, I am in awe of my body and her ability to do what needs to be done, even if the days of pain leading up feel too tight around my skin.
In awe of how listening more closely to her, being more present with all my parts, brings a sense of ease in more ways than one.
…
April 2024
A few weeks later Kiss and I are talking about my body’s current journey with the fistula, him on the outside couch, me in the hammock chair. He tells me it’s really hard to see me in that level of pain.
This is what I was thinking that night, but to hear it out loud is different. My breath wants to stick, hold and contract the muscles and sinews of my body, but I know this old pattern and so I remind myself to breathe into it.
I feel my back against the fabric of the hammock, how held I am. I breathe consciously and deeply into my belly and then my lungs. Slowly. I make sure I stay in my body. It’s okay if he’s scared of my pain. The difference between now and experiences from my past, is that he’s comfortable to share his experience of it, and I have the capacity to sit with that. He is able to verbalise these feelings to me instead of running away from them to keep me safe. This I can be with.
It’s one thing knowing (or suspecting) something and it’s another thing hearing it. What’s even harder though is knowing it’s there and knowing it’s being brushed over in the name of not hurting, or not further hurting.
Tears prickle in my eyes, and I let them be what they are. It’s safe to be here having this conversation. It’s a place of love and sharing, and even though it’s not comfortable, it feels comforting.
Can they exist side by side?
How does it feel to see a loved one in pain (physical, emotional, mental)?
How does it feel to be the loved one in pain?
If you have any words or stories to share, please do, I would love to hear from you!
Hugs and love from me,
Kali xx
One of my faves recently:
From a human who inspires me so on her journey of embodiment and celebrating the joys of this life…
I was right there with you when you described feeling into your forearms as a place that didn’t hurt, and I felt moved by your perspective on how you processed so much pain, how you feel around being witnessed with that pain, and then the gratitude for when it finally lets up and you’re able to walk to the beach to witness such natural beauty. Thanks for sharing and wishing you good health and many many beautiful easeful beach walks, including those preceded by comfort.